Does Anne just carry a stash of googly eyes at all times, so that she can affix them to things which offend her with their lack of googly eyes? That's... actually a pretty great policy. Maybe I'll adopt it.

Anne had minor ankle surgery last week, so she's been at home since Friday, recovering. Our pets are all incredibly excited that she's been a captive audience for them; both cats and both dogs have happily spent entire days on our bed with her. Yesterday, our cat Watson got himself all worked up...

Yeah, that's fair. I guess it's more like aiming a ballistic missile than a dart. You can steer it, a little, if you steer well in advance. They didn't have a ton of fuel to waste, so they were doing course corrections on the order of 1 centimeter per second, a week before landing. Still, I don't care what kind of guidance system you've got, that's a hell of a shot.

Last night, Anne and I got to go to the Jet Propulsion Labratory to watch the landing of the Mars Curiosity Rover. It was a powerful, emotional, inspiring experience. When I think about how these scientists flew something the size of my car to another planet and landed it almost exactly where th...

Depends on how you work it out. If you consider the entire flight path it's a lot farther. They landed less than 300 meters from where they were aiming, after traveling more than 300 million miles. That's like throwing a dart from LA and scoring a bullseye... in New York City. With the added bonus that if you blow it by more than about half an inch (at this scale), you smack into a mountain you weren't expecting.

Last night, Anne and I got to go to the Jet Propulsion Labratory to watch the landing of the Mars Curiosity Rover. It was a powerful, emotional, inspiring experience. When I think about how these scientists flew something the size of my car to another planet and landed it almost exactly where th...